13 February 2006

Score one for gay rights (World of Warcraft)

I'm glad that Blizzard Entertainment woke up and smelled the coffee. Or maybe it was the potential loss of money from a boycott from the LGBT community that they were smelling. Whatever the case, I'm glad that LGBT characters can feel free to be who they are, just as in real life, in their World of Warcraft MMORPG (that's Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). I own a few Blizzard games (World of Warcraft is not one of them, at least, not yet).

Aside from issuing a formal apology to Ms. Andrews, I'm glad to see that Blizzard is taking the LGBT gaming community seriously, by announcing that their employees will be mandated to undergo sensitivity training. While I think it's important to stick with their guidelines, the Blizzard administrator who started this ruckus could have handled it in a less threatening manner, and I think that's really what this whole ruckus was all about.

Now I can purchase those Blizzard Entertainment games that are on my Amazon.com wish list (or maybe someone can purchase them for me ....) Of course, it would help if I could get a new computer -- the one I'm using now is over seven years old -- so I can play the latest and greatest in computer games. Oh well.

One final note: One of the things that I like about Blizzard Entertainment's software is that it's compatible with Linux. In other words, Blizzard is one of the few game production houses that makes software for the Linux OS, and as I've said in the past, in order for Linux to catch hold, you're going to need games that will run natively under Linux.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Gay rights win in Warcraft world

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